Internet may appear to be a massive online archive but in fact much information is being lost, Dutch organisations attending a UNESCO conference in Paris say.

In particular, social media commentary, which says a great deal about trends in society and news events, will probably not be available for historic research in the future, the organisations warn in Tuesday’s Volkskrant.”

We are emerging from the digital dark ages,’ Marcel Ras, programme manager of the national digital sustainability coalition [Netherlands Coalition for Digital Preservation (NCDD)] says. ‘Much of the information from the early days of internet has gone for ever.

We are happy if we find a diary from the Dutch golden age but today’s diaries – Twitter and Facebook – are the heritage of the future. However, no one is taking responsibility for this,’ said University of Amsterdam researcher Julia Noordegraaf [Professor of Digital Heritage].

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.